After a season of doing these play-by-play analyses every week, I thought it would be fun to do it again. Reviewing each game in this manner can reveal realities not visible on first watch. Last year, it was clear to me that Steele Chambers was a promising linebacker after the Oregon game, and was convinced that he should have been a full-time starter after the Tulsa game, weeks before he ended up starting. The Tulsa game was also when I started to see improvement from Tommy Eichenberg, who ended up with 0 tackles that day but was vastly improved from the Oregon game. By mid-season, I was calling for him to start over Cody Simon. I could also see an immediate improvement in the defense after the switch in defensive coordinator after the Oregon game.

Of course, I saw a lot of things that ended up not being true as well. I expected there to be a more situational rotation after the Tulsa game, which was immediately scrapped. I also thought K’Vaughan Pope might get some more playing time down the stretch, which ended in flames. I thought the pass-rush wins from Tyreke Smith and Zach Harrison would lead to sacks (which I explained here). Finally, I thought that the running-game improvements were scalable against the best teams on the schedule and failed to see the pass defense struggles until after the Utah game.

The way the Notre Dame game played out was a gold mine for those wanting to find some quick conclusions to make. I will start with the defense, as it was easily the bigger concern of the two sides of the ball.

Here is the play-by-play chart. If you haven’t read this before, you do not need to read every single play. This is more a resource for checking my work or looking up specific plays. I still have lots of room to improve and will accept any and all feedback. The basic idea is that I give players positive points for doing something positive above and beyond their assignment and give players negative points for failing an aspect of their assignment. I also give points to certain metrics, which will be called out in the play descriptions. I also apologize for some errors in this post, as I did not have time for much proofreading.

This doesn’t look like the same team as last year.

If you have ever been curious as to what kind of difference the right coaches can make, look no further than the Oregon game last year to the Notre Dame game this year. For some of these players, like Michael Hall, they are no longer freshmen and are finally contributing. Other guys, like Eichenberg, Ransom, and Hickman played a lot last year and were coming in as veterans. I thought I knew what to expect from them. They did not look like the same players, and I still have a hard time believing they are the same guys I watched last year on film.

Outside of the players themselves playing better, the defense was so well prepared. The second defensive play of the fourth quarter (14:30) illustrates this perfectly, as though Notre Dame attempts to hurry up, Ohio State is ready for it, and as they back out and motion to a new formation, Ohio State again is ready for it. Nothing caught this team off guard, which is something that I could not say at all in the first two games last year and something I said maybe once afterward. Again, I can’t say enough good things about the coaching in this game. It was the first time I have charted an Ohio State defensive coach out-calling their opponent.

Here are the players’ aggregate scores over the game:

Most of the high scores are congruent with what was obvious during the first watch, but some of these scores are genuinely unusual. Each level of the defense had at least one player who played exceptionally well, and a couple were shocking to me.

While they were considered the weakness of the defense in summer, they didn’t play like it at all. Eichenberg was all over the place, and consistently showed good sideline-to-sideline speed. He was the least surprising standout of the day. He’s fast, instinctive, and is always in the right spot. Even in a conference like the B1G, he could reach First-Team All-Conference this year. It is only one game, but he has been continually improving for most of the past year.

I was surprised to see a rotation between Chambers and Simon, however. Chambers had been much better last year and seemed to establish himself as the early starter. Knowles did seem hesitant though when someone asked him about Chambers in a press conference, so perhaps he hasn’t played as well in practice as someone like Eichenberg. Either way, I thought he outplayed Simon in this game as well, and certainly had more highlights. Having said that, I didn’t really see a big mistake for either of them. Simon had a missed tackle, but that was after shooting through the gap to get into the backfield, and the gain was minimal. They both played adequately, though I still prefer Chambers. Still, a healthy Cody Simon will be an upgrade over a hobbled one.  

While I thought the defensive line was the best part of the defense last year, they were still lacking someone on the inside that could really wreak havoc, especially with Haskell Garrett hurt for most of the year. It seems as if they’ve someone, as Mike Hall had the best day of anyone on defense. I think Taron Vincent played well too, though Vincent mostly just did his job destroying blocks on the interior of the line, while Hall slipped through multiple times. Either way, when those two were in, there wasn’t much running room at all in the interior. Hall was dynamic when he was in last year, but there were only a few plays when he was in, and it was all in garbage time. I would never have seen this coming.

The biggest change Knowles made with the defensive line was to change their overall philosophy. Instead of trying to get into the backfield as quickly as possible, they have to ruin the offensive blocking scheme as much as possible. This is a run-defense focused change, and the defense will give up some pass-rush in order to clog interior lanes. For bigger defensive-ends like Harrison and Tuimoloau, this is a positive change. I don’t think either of those guys are pure pass rushers and are strong-side defensive ends based on their size. When those two were out there, ND had no success running the football. Though, too be fair, they had almost no success running the football the entire day. I do think this change in philosophy fits their skillsets better. Knowles is known to have drastically different gameplans for different teams though, so the personnel may change at the ends spot depending on the opponent. I guess we will see.

Jack Sawyer is currently the only one playing the Jack/Leo position, and he is constantly moving around the formation. I expected them to implement it like a 4-man front with the Leo just kind of floating, but they do play it like a 3-man front with an outside linebacker moving around different gaps. There was a decent chunk of it this game, but not nearly as much as I expected given what I saw at Oklahoma State. This might be one of the things we see more of as the defense gets a little less basic.

Easily the biggest surprise of the game though was seeing Lathan Ransom supplant Josh Proctor and perform spectacularly, for a multitude of reasons. First, Proctor was probably the safety I was most sure of going into the year, and he was the only defensive back to look comfortable with Coombs as the coordinator. Second, Ransom seemed undersized for the strong safety position; if he were to play anything I would expect free safety like he was recruited for or nickel safety like he played last year. Third, Ransom didn’t play all that well last year. Given a choice between him, Cam Martinez, and Kourt Williams, I would have put him third on that list a year ago.

Ransom supplanted Proctor after a single missed tackle and went on to have the best game I have graded for a safety. I have only been grading games for the past year, but this is the best safety performance I can remember since 2016 when Malik Hooker was doing some amazing things. I’ve said it already, but he looked like an entirely different player. The athletic potential was there, but he looked like an All-American in this game. His tackling (1Q 8:07, 2Q 8:42, 2Q 8:06, 2Q 0:23, 3Q 14:04) was consistently outstanding. All the tackles called out above were unusually good, quality tackles, especially for a safety. I don’t know how you take him off the field after that performance.

As for the other defensive backs, Ronnie Hickman also looked like a different guy from last year. He has always been dependable, but he seems to have taken another step in a more natural position. Cameron Brown was asked to defend Michael Mayer on multiple occasions throughout the night, and he did well for the most part. He got beat on a curl route, but later in the drive baited an ill-advised throw that might have been picked off if it were more accurate. Denzel Burke and Tanner McCallister got burned a few times. It wasn’t always punished, but there was room there for a more accurate downfield passing attack. This might be a potential weakness going forward, but again, it is only one game.

What should we worry about?

Nothing!

No, there are still plenty of issues to be worried about here. For one, we have only seen this defense for one game, and there were some spectacular individual performances that led to the overall success of the defense. It will take a few more games to really figure out what this defense will look like this year. It is certainly possible that this was an exceptional performance, and the defense will regress to their natural mean. It is also possible that Notre Dame was a particularly weak offense, and so the defensive performance was not all that great.

The passing defense was also rough at times, though the feast or famine nature of the defense prevented frequent scoring. 9.8 YPA is a very high number, especially for a team that is not expected to pass all that well. It is especially concerning that Burke and McCallister were beaten over the top multiple times. This is really the only aspect of the team I am worried about at the moment.

What should we not worry about?

Last year’s defense making a reappearance. When I watch the defense pre-snap, there is no longer any confusion. Post-snap, every player knows what they are doing. Even if they aren’t perfect, I can’t see there being another 2021 Michigan performance that isn’t an extreme outlier.

What should we be excited about?

The entirety of the defense. Going into the season, we didn’t expect the defense to have to win many games as long as it gives the offense a chance. Against Notre Dame, the Ohio State defense straight up won the game. I don’t want to jump to too many conclusions about the 2022 based on a single defensive performance, but I think I can say that after a single game, the defense’s ceiling is a lot higher than most people expected. This defense has the chance to be one of the elite units in the country, though it is too early to see if they will reach their heights. For now though, we can say that the defense can, at least on occasion, carry Ohio State to victory.

This series was inspired by MGoBlog's Upon Further Review.